FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the network of a typical telephony service provider. It illustrates the split within the carrier network today. The IT infrastructure comprises a service aggregation and deployment infrastructure that enables the rapid definition and deployment of new services as composite services to subscribers. The telephony network infrastructure is evolving toward a flexible, reliable internet protocol (IP) network and contains a network application infrastructure to implement new applications and services for subscribers. A challenge today within the carrier network is to enable both an information technology (IT) service or enterprise network (collectively referred to herein as IT infrastructure) and the telephony network to be successful while also providing the level of visibility and control necessary to take the maximum advantage of each network.
IT infrastructure provides rapid updates to existing services and introduction of totally new services based on the aggregation of telephony services (call notification, device presence, and the like), provider services (order management, billing, and the like) and third party services (music download, book price check, and the like). The IT infrastructure is the infrastructure upon which non-telephony applications (e.g., enterprise applications) run. These applications and combinations thereof are the services provided by the IT infrastructure. These services may be exposed by the IT infrastructure as web services. To the IT infrastructure, the telephony network is viewed as a web service or set of web services that provides gated access to telephony services and subscribers. The Microsoft Customer Care Framework (CCF) is an example of a platform used to create applications and services on IT infrastructure. As an example, the IT infrastructure may comprise servers and/or other computers interconnected via a network that are capable of providing services, exposing network applications as web services to other networks, and communicating with web services of other networks.
Telephony networks enhance and maintain the core network infrastructure to support network applications and telephony services while still maintaining the level of quality of service (QOS) that is expected of a telephony network. To the telephony network, the IT infrastructure provides the infrastructure necessary to provide advanced applications and services demanded by subscribers. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) application servers are typically used by service providers to implement the services and infrastructure of their telephony network.
Spurred by the advantages of the services of IT infrastructure, providers have started including other elements of an application over and above straight telephony applications. Modern applications include call features, such as new types of find me/follow me, transfer, different ways of viewing a directory, and the like. In the new and evolving application space, the applications become much richer and multi-model, as opposed to a single aspect of audio, which would be a straight telephony application. Such new applications include: finding driving directions, enhanced buddy lists, and mixing different types of communication including text chat, email, audio and video. However, IT infrastructure and telephony networks contain fundamental differences in how issues such as security, reliability, subscriber management and authentication, and billing are handled. These fundamental differences between IT infrastructure and a telephony network leads to a hesitancy by the service provides to open up and expose their telephony networks to the IT infrastructure without an ability to control the IT infrastructure's access to the telephony network.